


Empty Spaces

by Cadewyn



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Not really fact checked or edited either btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27442882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cadewyn/pseuds/Cadewyn
Summary: Sunset Curve didn't know what was going to happen the night of The Orpheum performance. When his bandmates don't show up and it's time to go on, Bobby's just heard the news... but he's going up on that stage. Even if he's alone now.
Kudos: 19





	Empty Spaces

Fifteen minutes after the others left to get street dogs, Bobby headed out of The Orpheum for the deli down the block, his conversation with Rose running through his mind. In just under two hours, they were going to play the gig of their lives, and everything was going to take off.

An hour before their performance, he was alone in their dressing room backstage, but all four of them pulled close calls in the past. Not to mention the roads surrounding the theater were a zoo as people arrived early for their showcase.

Half an hour before opening, he was sitting restlessly in one of the dressing room chairs, leg bouncing up and down as he fought the urge to bite his nails. The guys were too excited to be this late coming back, especially with the front doors now open so people could find their seats.

Ten minutes to go, and he was ducking around stage crew members to the mini bar set up specifically for the band.

Rose caught his anxious frown from where she sat with a friend –– Holly, he thought, but his mind was too full of nerves to remember clearly. “What’s wrong?” Rose asked, straightening.

“I don’t know.” Suddenly the walls seemed too dark, too overbearing. “But something is. The guys...”

The two girls exchanged a look that didn’t ease the twisting of his stomach. His sandwich hadn’t tasted like lead earlier, but it certainly felt like that now.

Five minutes, and he was back in the dressing room pacing like a caged animal, Rose and Holly keeping him company. It didn’t help at all.

When the knock at the door two minutes before stage call revealed his mother instead of one of the crew, Bobby felt the world tilt out from under his feet.

~

Though small, the ambulance could hold a surprising amount of people –– Luke was strapped to a gurney and various mobile monitors in the middle, unconscious –– Alex was coming in and out, curled into himself in one corner with an EMS worker next to him –– and Reggie was retching up the contents of his stomach on the opposite side with a second worker somewhere between him and Luke’s head.

Alex was awake when Luke flatlined, and Reggie could only remember clipped orders passing between the EMS to try to revive him. He was shivering when Alex mentioned Bobby… The Orpheum…

He couldn’t remember reaching the hospital, but he knew when Alex was strapped onto a gurney and taken away. He was fairly sure he screamed after his friends, neither one of them moving… neither alive as they were wheeled through the E.R. doors.

Reggie could barely process all the chaos, but suddenly he was on a gurney, too. Someone talked over him as he asked about his friends, including Bobby, about himself, and his heart beat an irregular rhythm when no one answered.

He clung to the thought of his bandmates as his eyes slipped shut.

~

Bobby was vaguely aware of the theater manager saying something about ticket refunds, and about his mother wrapping her arm around his shoulders while she held the conversation for him. The poor stage hand in charge of bringing out the band walked in on that situation –– two grown adults not quite yelling at each other near the door, two teenage girls mumbling to themselves in the back –– and Bobby caught in the middle, everything and nothing running through his head all at once.

He wasn’t sure if he spoke before heading out to the stage. He didn’t really have a plan besides grabbing his guitar, but then he was out in the spotlight, alone, the mics where Reggie and Luke stood and Alex’s drum set all empty while somebody brought out a barstool for him to sit on closer to stage right than the center.

He knew he spoke then, because the words were forever branded into his mind. “Hello, Orpheum!” Cheers answered his words, which sounded forced to his own ears, in that realm somewhere between fake happiness and a mental breakdown. “I’m Bobby of Sunset Curve! And, um, the others got a little held up before the show, so I’m just going to start things slow. Hope no one here minds some acoustics!”

He played songs that he and his guitar could manage alone, but he wouldn’t remember later what they were. Or how Rose went from signaling to him from her place backstage, suddenly flanked by two others alongside Holly, to joining him in the spotlight.

The band covered other artists with him, just to keep the concert going, to keep him from collapsing to his knees in front of a sold-out Orpheum, to keep death away a little longer. And when they closed with Now Or Never, arguably the most famous Sunset Curve song so far, he managed to silence the part of his mind that was screaming this wasn’t how it was supposed to sound, this wasn't _his band_ ––

“Thank you, L.A.!”

It wasn’t until he was back in the dressing room, alone, always alone, that the façade crumbled. His mother somehow caught him before he fell to the floor, hot tears blurring the room around him, his heart beating so hard he was sure it wanted to die, too.

He’d managed to play The Orpheum. The one place they all wanted to star, to prove that they could make it farther than so many others. He gave Sunset Curve that much.

But he wasn’t sure if he could do it again.

~

Their fans found out, of course. It was plastered in most local newspapers the next morning, and from there, word spread. He just hid from the world as long as he could.

The stupid letters, though, forwarded straight from The Orpheum itself –– people saying they were sorry, they hoped he was doing okay, they’d never forget the band–– It was either the first or second day after they started rolling in that he destroyed his room. He didn’t remember much of it, or the twin looks of grief from his parents, or his father’s resigned sigh when he dodged under the man’s outstretched arm. He didn’t stop moving, completely on autopilot, until he reached the studio. And screamed into the deafening silence he found there.

Part of him wanted to destroy this room, too, but he couldn’t. This wasn’t just his home, and he wouldn’t do that to his best friends, even if they managed to leave him alone all these days.

Eyes burning with fresh tears, he just curled up on the couch with Luke’s songwriting journal and forced himself to be careful turning the pages.

~

On the anniversary of it all, Bobby found himself outside a record exec’s office not too far from that stupid theater, Rose and her friends at his sides. Most of the year passed in a blur, but he was grateful for the days he let Rose into the studio to breathe some life back into it, and the ones he joined her and the others at various shows around the city.

It wasn’t the same, not by a long shot, but it meant he was still moving. Still doing things for the others that lived inside his brain… just his brain. Nowhere else.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Dahlia pressed a hand to his shoulder.

When did he start shaking? He took a breath. “I have to. For their sake.”

“We’ll be right here when you’re done.” Rose nodded to the office doors. “You’ve got this.”

Taking another breath, he started the rest of the way inside. Always alone nowadays, at least visibly. He’d played The Orpheum for his friends, because they’d all worked too hard for him to just throw it away. He could finalize a deal and record some of their songs, too.

He owed Alex, Luke, and Reggie that much.

**Author's Note:**

> This was also posted to my [Tumblr](https://nephilim-at-heart.tumblr.com/), and you're welcome to come chat with me there if you'd like! I have a few other ideas for JATP at the time of writing this, as it's been the inspiration to get me sharing my work again and Bobby deserves his story to be told, too. (Even if we love our ghost band.)


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